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Stolen Face
A plastic surgeon changes the face of a female convict to match that of the beautiful woman who broke his heart and left him. He marries the convict but trouble starts when his true love returns.
Release : | 1952 |
Rating : | 6 |
Studio : | Hammer Film Productions, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Director of Photography, |
Cast : | Paul Henreid Lizabeth Scott André Morell Mary Mackenzie Susan Stephen |
Genre : | Drama Thriller Crime |
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A waste of 90 minutes of my life
Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.
The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
The acting in this movie is really good.
I have around 80 Hammer films in my movie collection and this is the earliest one (due to its inclusion on "The Mummy" Blu Ray as a special feature). I'm embarking on a Hammer movie marathon for 2018 - viewing them in production order. This film kept me intrigued for most of it's short duration though the ending seemed rushed and lacklustre. Adequate performances from the leads - I have never seen or heard of Paul Henreid or Lizabeth Scott before but I found them both very watchable. The premise is fairly ridiculous and the plot rather lightweight but there were entertaining scenes throughout. The direction and editing was quite good for a low budget black and white film that is 66 years old. 4/10 - Fair
Insane melodrama with an over-the-top score by Malcolm Arnold proves to be an engaging experience that will make you smile quite often at its absurd plot twists, and will probably make you laugh out loud a couple of times in rollicking disbelief. The plot is almost a catalog of the obsessions, prejudices, misconceptions of human behavior and popular interpretation of love and science in the mid- 20th century. All treated with a solemn face, they give us a vivid portrait of the time. I am not blaming anybody or being censorial about the movie: I truly enjoyed most of it! Although I was one year old when it was released, watching the film was like opening a little window and remembering many things that were still accepted as true, fine or right when I was a kid. A field day for lovers of self-help manuals, this horrid version of the Pygmalion legend follows a plastic surgeon who has an affair with a pianist and loses her in the same week, and who decides to give her features to an inmate in a British prison with a scarred face. What follows has to be seen (with some very enjoyable screen moments among the seedy characters of London), leading to a self-righteous conclusion that is a letdown, considering that after all the terrible happenings that he was somehow responsible for, the surgeon closes the case with a cynical statement that leaves a sour taste. Still one admires Terence Fisher's skill to keep us fascinated for 69 minutes with another sick, maniac tale, as we grew accustomed to see and hear from him.
Stolen Face is directed by Terence Fisher and adapted to screenplay by Martin Berkeley and Richard H. Landau from a story by Alexander Paal and Steven Vas. It stars Paul Henreid, Lizabeth Scott and André Morell. Music is by Malcolm Arnold and cinematography by Walter J. Harvey.After meeting and falling in love with pianist Alice Brent (Scott), plastic surgeon Dr. Philip Ritter (Henreid) is crushed when she leaves him and reveals she's engaged to another man. Upon being introduced to facially disfigured female convict Lily Conover (Mary Mackenzie), Ritter decides to reconstruct her face to look exactly like Alice...One of Hammer Film Productions ventures into B grade noir territory, Stolen Face is deliciously bonkers! Set up takes thirty minutes as couple meet in the lovely surroundings of an English country inn, they have whirlwind love and all is lovely and jaunty. Woman runs off to her other life, doctor doesn't think straight and obviously gets more than he bargained for when giving a Pygmalion make over to someone who he himself calls "an ugly social misfit". Original woman comes back into the picture, just as the good doctor's life is in turmoil, and we hurtle to a finale that is going to end bad for one of the three principals. Ultimately, and if anyone is taking it seriously then they may need some sort of corrective surgery themselves, it's a fun cheapie that lacks the social nous of Behind the Mask (1941), or the psychological smarts of Vertigo (1958). It's driven by its gimmick and nothing else, Henreid and Scott play it right, the latter an American noir darling having fun in the dual role, while it serves as a learning curve for Fisher who would become one of Hammer's greatest horror directors some years later.Not very noir in reality, certainly visually, and not very memorable all told. But still a decent enough time waster for those who enjoy those sort of mad premise movies that had a glint in their eye. 6/10
If cosmetic surgeons could create faces like Lizabeth Scott's at will, they would be making even more than they earn now, or did half a century ago when A Stolen Face hit theaters. (But then the surgically created evil twin has been a staple of pulp movies up to John Woo's Face/Off). On holiday somewhere in England, Paul Henried, as an M.D., meets up with concert pianist (!) Scott. They fall in love, but she's spoken for. Back in grimy postwar London, he finds a patient horribly scarred in the blitz, refashions her into the spit-and-image of Scott, and marries the impudent baggage (a Cockney fadge with one foot in the gutter and the other on a banana peel). Their marriage, for some reason, does not go well. Re-enter Lizabeth Scott, who now has to play a double role.... The movie's not terrible, at least, though these noirish exercises set in Britain always have a fusty, half-hearted feel to them, more a mug of white tea than a snort of bonded Bourbon. Both Scott and Henried were well into the downslope of their careers -- which may, more than the locale, account for the enervated pace and commitment.